The difficulty of seeing art-especially contemporary art-in Boston has less to do with a simple lack than with inefficient distribution. Other cities put art in centralized depositories and then put these depositories in proximity to each other, creating zones of very high art-object per square-foot ratios, such as New York's supremely logical Museum Mile.
Boston follows such a plan for art created before 1900: It's an easy walk from the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. But the MFA's frustrating lack of commitment to contemporary art leaves a diffuse network of university galleries and miscellaneous non-profits picking up the slack. Fantastic exhibitions are hidden away in odd corners, most reliably at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), the List Visual Arts Center and the Rose Art Museum. A new sculpture park is in the works at the Univeristy of Massachusetts at Boston, under the very ambitious direction of art historian Paul Tucker. Pieces by Richard Serra, Nancy Holt and Ursula von Rydingsvard should be coming in within the next year or so, and Tucker has had encouraging conversations with Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin and Judy Chicago. In the meantime, if you go a little out of your way, there's plenty of good stuff already here.
Part I: Museums and University galleries
BOSTON UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
855 Commonwealth Ave., Boston (T: B.U. West)
Tue-Fri: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat-Sun: 1-5 p.m.
Admission FREE.
Like most every university gallery in the area, the Boston University Art Gallery divides its exhibition program between internationally known artists and B.U.'s own, less famous, students and faculty. The Gallery emphasizes 20th-century figurative painting, in keeping with the B.U. School of the Arts curriculum. The exhibition opening tonight promises much identity-politics-installation excitement. There will be a talk with Ellen Rothenberg from 5-6 and an opening reception from 6-8.
Oct. 29-Dec. 12: "Telling Histories: Installations by Ellen Rothenberg and Carrie Mae Weems."
Jan. 14-Feb. 27, 2000: "Orbits: NASA Astronauts Photograph the Earth," "Celestial Images: Astronomical Maps, 1500-1900."
617.353.3329
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